The winning of the West; an account of the exploration and settlement of our country from the Alleghanies to the Pacific

Contents

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Roosevelt, Historian and Statesman

George Haven Putnam v

II

The narratives in "The Winning of the West" are, as I have said, told in dramatic language, but the author did not permit his sense of dramatic effect to interfere with, or even to influence, the accuracy of the record. As his introduction to the volumes has made clear, his examination of the documents in the case had been comprehensive, thorough, and even exhaustive. He had travelled, sometimes on horseback, over all the States the early history of which he was recording. He had had the opportunity of examining archives — American, French, English, and Spanish. He had read countless documents and letters. His admiration of the heroism of the frontiersmen did not prevent him from realizing and from describing honestly their limitations, their intolerance with the Indians, and their frequent difficulty in understanding the point of view of the other fellow. Roosevelt's description of such episodes as the capture of Vincennes by Clark and of the Battle of King's Mountain are really brilliantly told episodes.

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There is no "fine writing. " The language is simple enough. But the writer has succeeded in visualizing the men, their environment, their task, and the things accomplished. I think he was the first historian to indicate that the Battle of King's Mountain, fought in September, 1780, at which the rear-guard of the army of Comwallis was defeated, in cutting Comwallis off from his base of supplies, may easily have been the decisive factor in the success of the campaign which ended in the surrender at Yorktown. He makes clear that the appearance from the western side of the Alleghanies of the three groups of fighters, called for the purpose of the battle "battalions," under the leadership of Colonels Campbell, Sevier, and Shelby, brought as much surprise to the Continental generals, to Washington and Greene, as it did to Comwallis and to Colonel Ferguson who commanded the British troops that, after Ferguson's death, surrendered on the top of King's Mountain, I do not know of another case in history in which a battle has been won by three detachments each under a separate command, and with no one of the commanders acknowledging the leadership of the other. This was one of the Revolutionary episodes in which Roosevelt took a personal delight, and the delight is indicated in the glow of his narrative.

The West, the winning of which Roosevelt describes, comprised what are now described as the "Middle States" of the Republic. The occupation of this territory by the sturdy frontiersmen, who faced the hardships of the toilsome journeys, of fierce weather, of aggressive Indians, and many of whom under these hardships sacrificed their lives, constituted a great step forward toward the development of our national territory, a development that was completed when we secured the control of the Pacific coast and Alaska. The winning of the West was really the development of the nation. This great fact was fully recognized by our historian, and his description of it constitutes one of the most valuable, and certainly one of the most dramatic, divisions of the history of the Republic.

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III

"The Winning of the West" was one of the few books which were in large part written, put into print, bound, and sold under the one roof.

Mr. Roosevelt found it convenient to utilize for his work the desk that was placed at his disposal in the premises of the publishing house, which was at that time located in 23d Street.

The three upper floors of the building were then occupied by the printing and binding departments of The Knickerbocker Press. The ground floor was devoted to the business of Putnam's retail store. From week to week Roosevelt completed some divisions of his text, which then went up-stairs to the composingroom and came back for the author's proof-reading. The printing and the binding were completed up-stairs, and supplies of the book were shipped from the publishing department to the booksellers throughout the country. Supplies were, of course, also delivered for direct sale to the customers of the retail department. Before the work was completed, Roosevelt accepted appointment as civil service commissioner, and some of the chapters in the later volumes were written in Washington, while he was actively — I might say combatively — engaged in the extension of the merit system. The final volume was completed in the old headquarters of the New York Police Department in Mulberry Street while he was carrying on his memorable fight for civic decency as president of the Police Board.

Roosevelt's relation with the publishing house of G. P. Putnam's Sons was not only that of an author and client, but of a partner. He had at the time of the writing of his first book, "The Naval War of 18 12," entered the firm as a silent or special partner. Those who knew the man will realize the difficulty, I might say the impracticability, of Roosevelt being "silent" imder any responsibilities. He put his desk in my office and interested himself in showing his publisher how to run a publishing business. He was, as Mrs. Partington is quoted as saying, "profligate in suggestions." He accepted, however, with full xii ROOSEVELT

good nature the turning down of nearly all of his plans for impossible publishing undertakings. He retired from the firm, after a few years' association, with no little regret. He needed the amount of his investment in order to protect his ownership in his cattle-ranches in Montana. There had been a couple of bad seasons, and the ranches were in financial need. He scolded me later for not having refused to pay him off. "The publishing undertaking," he said, "was a good investment, but the money that you returned to me went into the prairie and has never come back."

IV

It is difficult even after the passage of almost five years to write unmoved of my personal relations with my friend. I knew him from the time he was a bright-eyed and active-minded boy of ten. It was my privilege to have admission to the charming home circle, presided over by his public-spirited and fine-minded father and his very attractive mother. Theodore came to me almost directly from college to secure some business experience in a publishing office. His home was near my place of business in 23d Street, and he placed his desk next to mine, and carried on from there his correspondence, which was already beginning to be active.

It was as a publisher that he made his first entrance into politics, when he was elected to the Assembly, in Albany. I remember his vigorous expressions, when he would come to me on Saturday morning, about the men with whom he had had to do in Albany, and the nefarious schemes he was opposing. He had, what was very exceptional — in fact almost unprecedented in our Legislative Assembly — made himself heard and felt during his first term. With no party behind him, but with a small group of men who believed in him, including his friend and mine, Walter Howe, he was able, inexperienced youngster as he was, to put through certain measures which were valuable for the city, and to head off not a few schemes which would have worked mischief.

HISTORIAN AND STATESMAN xiii

He gave immediate evidence of qualities as a leader, and of his ability to impress his personality upon the men with whom he had to do. These men came to realize, at once, that Roosevelt had no party or personal purposes and was working purely for the good of the community. They realized also his unflinching courage, and that when he stated he was going to fight something which in his judgment was abominable, the fight would go on to the end.

He made me his confidant at the time in regard to details of this political work, and his own plans and purpose. He was amusingly frank to me in analyzing the qualities, good and bad, of the politicians whom he was then meeting for the first time. His association with myself continued later, when he interested himself in the cause of civil service reform, a cause for which he did such excellent work. He became, shortly after leaving the Assembly, a member of the executive committee of our New York association, and it was in that committee that he came into personal relations, which soon became relations of intimate friendship, with men like Curtis, Schurz, Barlow, Godkin, Horace White, and other patriotic citizens who were doing what they could to secure a higher standard of service for the officials of the country. It was his experience in this committee that made his later work as a civil service commissioner peculiarly valuable, and he established for that commission in Washington a standard of courageous and consistent action which later could not be put to one side.

I consider that the service rendered by him in behalf of the civil service cause was similar to that rendered by John Marshall in securing assured continuity for the Constitution. In the outspoken expression of his convictions, in his opposition to men whom he found to be, or believed to be, untrustworthy, in his straightforward directness of statement and of action, he made, of necessity, sharp opponents, but he also increased, from year to year, the circle of his warm personal friends. I found myself, through those years, holding the man in increasing respect, and the friend with a larger and larger measure of affectionate regard.

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V

The last public document to which Roosevelt gave his name was written from his sick-bed in the hospital. I had been to see him from time to time, but on this occasion he had sent for me, and I had the pleasure of making the visit in company with Doctor Manning. Roosevelt said there was something he wanted me to do for him, "While I was in the White House, I made a statement which I now want to correct. I have changed my mind in regard to a matter of some importance."

He was referring to an utterance made while he was President in regard to the relations of the United States with England. He had taken the ground that we should, of course, always maintain a friendly association with Great Britain, and that such association was important on more grounds than one. He said further, however, that even in our relations with England there were some things in regard to which we should make reservation. Issues might arise in which the national honor would be involved.

"I was not ready," he continued, "at that time to agree that we should be ready to submit every possible issue to arbitration. I want, however, to say to-day that no issue can arise between the United States and Great Britain which ought not to be settled, and which cannot be settled, in friendly conference, or if the conference may not be successful, be settled by arbitration. Between England and ourselves there must be no non-justiciable question. This is essential for the interests of the English-speaking peoples of the world, and I believe it is important, if not essential, for the safety and peace of the world itself. I want to tell the public that I have changed my mind on this matter."

"There need be no diflficulty," I said. "When I get back to the office, I will put certain questions to you in a letter, and I will see to it that your answer to my letter reaches the public on both sides of the Atlantic."

My letter went to Roosevelt the next day, and his answer came to me a day later. It was published widely through the United States and Great Britain. The letter would in any case have se-

HISTORIAN AND STATESMAN

XV cured in England sympathetic attention, but as it reached the papers by mail just at the time the news of Roosevelt's death came by cable, it carried special emphasis. It was his last word to the English as well as to the American people. I make a brief citation from this letter:

' ' This war has brought home to the great majority of the thinking men of this country the fact that the English-speaking peoples possess, in common, both ideals and interests. We can best do our duty as members of the Family of Nations, to maintain peace and justice throughout the world, by first rendering it impossible that the peace between ourselves can ever be broken. . . . There is no reason why there should not be on the two sides of the Atlantic the same relation for peace that has for a century obtained on the two sides of the Great Lakes. . . . We should say that under no circumstances shall there ever be a resort to war between the United States and the British Empire, and that no question can ever arise between them that cannot be settled in judicial fashion, in some such manner as questions between States of our own Union would be settled."

I am glad to remember that almost the last spoken word by him to America and the world should have been given through me.

Theodore Roosevelt was a man devoted to the service of the Republic and of humanity. He believed that life was worth while; that the years and days were given to a man in trust, and that it was a crime to waste even an hour. He got much out of life because he put much into life.

"O strange New World that yit wast never young, Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung, Brown foundhn' o' the woods, whose baby-bed Was prowled roun' by the Injun's cracklin' tread, And who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains, Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane ; Thou skilled by Freedom and by gret events To pitch new states ez Old World men pitch tents. Thou taught by fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man.

"Oh, my friends, thank your God, if you have one, that he 'Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea; Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs."

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Chapter I The Spread Of The English-speaking Peoples

DURING the past three centuries the spread of the Eng- Hsh-speaking peoples over the world's waste spaces has been not only the most striking feature in the world's history, but also the event of all others most far-reaching in its effects and its importance.

The tongue which Bacon feared to use in his writings, lest they should remain forever unknown to all but the inhabitants of a relatively unimportant insular kingdom, is now the speech of two continents. The Common Law which Coke jealously upheld in the southern half of a single European island, is now the law of the land throughout the vast regions of Australasia, and of America north of the Rio Grande. The names of the plays that Shakespeare wrote are household words in the mouths of mighty nations whose wide domains were to him more unreal than the realm of Prester John. Over half the descendants of their fellow countrymen of that day now dwell in lands which, when these three Englishmen were born, held not a single white inhabitant ; the race which, when they were in their prime, was hemmed in between the North and the Irish seas, to-day holds sway over worlds whose endless coasts are washed by the waves of the three great oceans.

There have been many other races that at one time or another had their great periods of race expansion — as distinguished from mere conquest — but there has never been another whose expansion has been either so broad or so rapid.

At one time, many centuries ago, it seemed as if the Germanic peoples, like their Celtic foes and neighbors, would be absorbed into the all-conquering Roman power, and merging their identity in that of the victors, would accept their law, their speech, and their habits of thought. But this danger vanished forever on the day of the slaughter by the Teutoburger Wald, when the legions of Varus were broken by the rush of Hermann's wild warriors.

Two or three hundred years later the Germans, no longer on the defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests, conquering and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark woodland east of the Rhine and north of the Danube; and as their force spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who dwelt along the coasts of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. From the Volga to the Pillars of Hercules, from Sicily to Britain, every land in turn bowed to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin. Rome and Novgorod, the imperial city of Italy as well as the squalid capital of Muscovy, acknowledged the sway of kings of Teutonic or Scandinavian blood.

In most cases, however, the victorious invaders merely intruded themselves among the original and far more numerous owners of the land, ruled over them, and were absorbed by them. This happened to both Teuton and Scandinavian — to the descendants of Alaric as well as to the children of Rurik. The Dane in Ireland became a Celt; the Goth of the Iberian peninsula became a Spaniard; Frank and Norwegian alike were merged into the mass of Romance-speaking Gauls, who themselves finally grew to be called by the names of their masters. Thus it came about that though the German tribes conquered Europe they did not extend the limits of Germany nor the sway of the German race. On the contrary, they strengthened the hands of the rivals of the people from whom they sprang. They gave rulers — kaisers, kings, barons, and knights — to all the lands they overran ; here and there they imposed their own names on kingdoms and principalities — as in France, Normandy, Burgundy, and Lombardy; they grafted the feudal system on the Roman jurisprudence, and interpolated a few Teutonic words in the Latin dialects of the peoples they had conquered; but, hopelessly outnumbered, they were soon lost in the mass of their subjects, and adopted from them their laws, their culture, and their language. As a result, the mixed races of the south — the Latin nations as they are sometimes called — strengthened by the infusion of northern blood, sprang anew into vigorous life, and became for the time being the leaders of the European world.

There was but one land whereof the winning made a lasting addition to Germanic soil; but this land was destined to be of more importance in the future of the Germanic peoples than all their continental possessions, original and acquired, put together. The day when the keels of the Low Dutch seathieves first grated on the British coast was big with the doom of many nations. There sprang up in conquered southern Britain, when its name had been significantly changed to England, that branch of the Germanic stock which was in the end to grasp almost literally world-wide power, and by its overshadowing growth to dwarf into comparative insignificance all its kindred folk. At the time, in the general wreck of the civilized world, the making of England attracted but little attention. Men's eyes were riveted on the empires conquered by the hosts of Alaric, Theodoric, and Clovis, not on the swarm of little kingdoms and earldoms founded by the nameless chiefs who led each his band of hard-rowing, hard-fighting henchmen across the stormy waters of the German Ocean. Yet the rule and the race of Goth, Frank, and Burgund have vanished from off the earth, while the sons of the unknown Saxon, Anglian, and Friesic warriors now hold in their hands the fate of the coming years.

After the great Teutonic wanderings were over, there came a long lull, until, with the discovery of America, a new period of even vaster race expansion began. During this lull the nations of Europe took on their present shapes. Indeed, the so-called Latin nations — the French and Spaniards, for instance — may be said to have been born after the first set of migrations ceased. Their national history, as such, does not really begin until about that time, whereas that of the Germanic peoples stretches back unbroken to the days when we first hear of their existence. It would be hard to say which one of half a dozen races that existed in Europe during the early centuries of the present era should be considered as especially the ancestor of the modern Frenchman or Spaniard. When the Romans conquered Gaul and Iberia they did not in any place drive out the ancient owners of the soil ; they simply Romanized them, and left them as the base of the population. By the Frankish and Visigothic invasions another strain of blood was added, to be speedily absorbed, while the invaders took the language of the conquered people, and established themselves as the ruling class. Thus the modern nations who sprang from this mixture derive portions of their governmental system and general policy from one race, most of their blood from another, and their language, law, and culture from a third.

The English race, on the contrary, has a perfectly continuous history. When Alfred reigned, the English already had a distinct national being; when Charlemagne reigned, the French, as we use the term to-day, had no national being whatever. The Germans of the mainland merely overran the countries that lay in their path; but the sea-rovers who won England to a great extent actually displaced the native Britons. The former were absorbed by the subject-races ; the latter, on the contrary, slew or drove off or assimilated the original inhabitants. Unlike all the other Germanic swarms, the English took neither creed nor custom, neither law nor speech, from their beaten foes. At the time when the dynasty of the Capets had become firmly established at Paris, France was merely part of a country where Latinized Gauls and Basques were ruled by Latinized Franks, Goths, Burgunds, and Normans; but the people across the Channel then showed little trace of Celtic or Romance influence. It would be hard to say whether Vercingetorix or Caesar, Clovis or Syagrius, has the better right to stand as the prototype of a modern French general. There is no such doubt in the other case. The average EngHshman, American, or Austrahan of to-day who wishes to recall the feats of power with which his race should be credited in the shadowy dawn of its history, may go back to the half -mythical glories of Hengist and Horsa, perhaps to the deeds of Civilis the Batavian, or to those of the hero of the Teutoburger fight, but certainly to the wars neither of the Silurian chief Caractacus nor of his conqueror, the after-time Emperor Vespasian.

Nevertheless, when, in the sixteenth century, the European peoples began to extend their dominions beyond Europe, England had grown to differ profoundly from the Germanic countries of the mainland. A very large Celtic' element had been introduced into the English blood, and, in addition, there had been a considerable Scandinavian admixture. More important still were the radical changes brought by the Norman conquest ; chief among them the transformation of the old English tongue into the magnificent language which is now the common inheritance of so many wide-spread peoples. England's insular position, moreover, permitted it to work out its own fate comparatively unhampered by the presence of outside powers ; so that it developed a type of nationality totally distinct from the types of the European mainland.

All this is not foreign to American history. The vast movement by which this continent was conquered and peopled cannot be rightly understood if considered solely by itself. It was the crowning and greatest achievement of a series of mighty movements, and it must be taken in connection with them. Its true significance will be lost unless we grasp, however roughly, the past race-history of the nations who took part therein. ,

When, with the voyages of Columbus and his successors, the great period of extra-European colonization began, various nations strove to share in the work. Most of them had to plant their colonies in lands across the sea; Russia, alone, was by her geographical position enabled to extend her frontiers by land, and, in consequence, her comparatively recent colonization of Siberia bears some resemblance to our own work in the Western United States. The other countries of Europe were forced to find their outlets for conquest and emigration beyond the ocean, and, until the colonists had taken firm root in their new homes, the mastery of the seas thus became a matter of vital consequence.

Among the lands beyond the ocean America was the first reached and the most important. It was conquered by different European races, and shoals of European settlers were thrust forth upon its shores. These sometimes displaced and sometimes merely overcame and lived among the natives. They also, to their own lasting harm, committed a crime whose short-sighted folly was worse than its guilt, for they brought hordes of African slaves, whose descendants now form immense populations in certain portions of the land. Throughout the continent we therefore find the white, red, and black races in every stage of purity and intermixture. One result of this great turmoil of conquest and immigration has been that, in certain parts of America, the lines of cleavage of race are so far from coinciding with the lines of cleavage of speech that they run at right angles to them — as in the four communities of Ontario, Quebec, Hayti, and Jamaica.

Each intruding European power, in winning for itself new realms beyond the seas, had to wage a twofold war, overcoming the original inhabitants with one hand, and with the other warding off the assaults of the kindred nations that were bent on the same schemes. Generally, the contests of the latter kind were much the most important. The victories by which the struggles between the European conquerors themselves were ended deserve lasting commemoration. Yet, sometimes, even the most important of them, sweeping though they were, were in parts less sweeping than they seemed. It would be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching effects of the overthrow of the French power in America; but Lower Canada, where the fatal blow was given, itself suffered nothing but a political conquest, which did not interfere in the least with the growth of a French state along both sides of the lower St. Lawrence. In a somewhat similar way Dutch communities have held their own, and indeed have sprung up, in South Africa.

All the European nations touching on the Atlantic seaboard took part in the new work, with very varying success — Germany alone, then rent by many feuds, having no share therein. Portugal founded a single state, Brazil, The Scandinavian nations did little; their chief colony fell under the control of the Dutch. The English and the Spaniards were the two nations to whom the bulk of the new lands fell, the former getting much the greater portion. The conquests of the Spaniards took place in the sixteenth century. The West Indies and Mexico, Peru and the limitless grass plains of what is now the Argentine Confederation — all these and the lands lying between them had been conquered and colonized by the Spaniards before there was a single English settlement in the New World, and while the fleets of the Catholic king still held for him the lordship of the ocean. Then the cumbrous Spanish vessels succumbed to the attacks of the swift warships of Holland and England, and the sun of the Spanish world-dominion set as quickly as it had risen. Spain at once came to a standstill ; it was only here and there that she even extended her rule over a few neighboring Indian tribes, while she was utterly unable to take the offensive against the French, Dutch, and English. But it is a singular thing that these vigorous and powerful newcomers, who had so quickly put a stop to her further growth, yet wrested from her very little of what was already hers. They plundered a great many Spanish cities and captured a great many Spanish galleons, but they made no great or lar.ting conquest of Spanish territory. Their mutual jealousies, and the fear each felt of the others, were among the main causes of this state of things ; and hence it came about that after the opening of the seventeenth century the wars they waged against one another were of far more ultimate . consequence than the wars they waged against the former mistress of the western world. England in the end drove both France and Holland from the field ; but it was under the banner of the American Republic, not under that of the British monarchy, that the English-speaking peoples first won vast stretches of land from the descendants of the Spanish conquerors.

The three most powerful of Spain's rivals waged many a long war with one another to decide which should grasp the sceptre that had slipped from Spanish hands. The fleets of Holland fought with stubborn obstinacy to wrest from England her naval supremacy; but they failed, and in the end the greater portion of the Dutch domains fell to their foes. The French likewise began a course of conquest and colonization at the same time the English did, and after a couple of centuries of rivalry, ending in prolonged warfare, they also succumbed. The close of the most important colonial contest ever waged left the French without a foot of soil on the North American mainland; while their victorious foes had not only obtained the lead in the race for supremacy on that continent, but had also won the command of the ocean. They thenceforth found themselves free to work their will in all sea-girt lands, unchecked by hostile European influence.